Making my FIRST Suit of Armor!! *15th Century*

Prepare to march! Welcome back to the workshop guys. It's 2022 and we're getting back into the business of making armor and following the stories of history that go right along with them. This time we're making an infantry harness, an Italian suit of armor, the first suit of armor that we've made here at Iron Crown Workshop. We want to bring you guys along for the journey and the adventure of crafting, story and history that we're going to be tackling here on camera. But guys, we're not going to stop there. We're going to set ourselves a challenge and raise the stakes by trying to finish this harness by Call to Arms 2022. Yeah, we might have missed that one already. 2023? But for me, this is incredibly exciting because this is the first time that I'm going to actually get to make a suit of armor for myself. As an armorer, I've worked tirelessly over the last few years to hone my skills and gather techniques and experience. And this is an opportunity for me to put all of those together into a complete harness and to share that journey with you guys. We're going to get to take pieces from museums and recreate them here in the workshop in real life, looking at each step of the process as we reconstruct history one hammer blow at a time. Who gets to do this? Making a suit of armor for yourself in the 21st century, right from the pieces of history. This is incredible. And I'm so excited to bring you guys along for the journey. So what do we mean when we say harness? In the medieval sense, harness refers to the suit of armor or the combination of plates of steel that cover and defend the warrior on the battlefield. And no, not the harness that horses wear, which is probably what you were thinking. We're going to be making four complete pieces of armor, a sallet, a bevore, a breastplate, and a set of gauntlets that together with some various items of soft kit and mail will create an infantry harness. That is a set of armor that would have been worn by a higher level infantryman in the late 15th century. So why 15th century armor and why Italian? Well, one of the main motivations for making this armor is for an event called call to arms run here in Australia. You can check out a video on our channel about it. Have a cheeky look in. Call to arms is a living history event centered around the events of the Burgundian wars, following the campaign of Charles the Bold in the third quarter of the 15th century. As reenactors here in Australia, we're trying to depict an Italian mercenary company. And as such, 15th century suit of armor would fit right alongside the rest of them. Another great reason to do Italian made armor is that Italian armor was exported across the entire continent of Europe. The city of Milan in the north of Italy was an armor making hub in the 15th century, with many different workshops producing armors for kings, lords, and princes right across Europe. To add to that, 15th century armor is the pinnacle of that story of arms and armor, in my opinion. Whenever you think about a knight in shining armor, it's armor from this period of history that captures our imagination with its curves, its creases, its flutes, its intersecting lines. It is a beauty to behold. Hopefully at the end of that, you guys get to see this harness in action on the battlefield here in the 21st century, as we culminate that journey through time and history to bring together an entire functional armor, a harness from the 15th century, and you guys are going to come along for that journey. So let's go on an adventure together here in the Iron Crown workshop. Pick up your hammers, let's craft some history, and hopefully at the end it comes back in one piece. See you guys at the end.